Chapter 48
Sarah went first.
The entrance to the main processing hall was the same one she’d used days earlier—the heavy steel door at dock level, its hinges crusted with salt, a gap beneath it where the floorboards had warped.
She pulled it open now with her rifle raised, weapon light cutting into the darkness, the weight of her body armor pressing against her bruised ribs. Corroded pipes, puddles glinting from overhead leaks. The air was thick with the must of damp timber.
“Slow,” she whispered.
Walter fell in behind her, barely audible except for the quiet rasp of his rifle against his jacket and the deliberate placement of each boot. The wind gusted a loose sheet of metal somewhere deep inside the cannery.
Boom.
The sound rolled through the building like distant thunder. Sarah’s finger tightened against the trigger guard before discipline eased it again.
Jesus.
Something cold struck the back of her neck. She pivoted, weapon light sweeping the ceiling. Water dripped through gaps in the roof, falling from beam to beam before finding her collar. She wiped the back of her neck and moved on.
The floor gave slightly beneath her feet, flexing on its pilings as the tide surged. She took careful steps, testing the wood. Water slapped against the timber, the sound traveling up through the boards, into her boots before burrowing into the base of her spine.
She breathed out long and slow. They’d brought this into her town. She was going to find every last one of them.
Steel hooks swung lazily from overhead, nudged by the draft. Somewhere beyond, lengths of chain clinked together.
She held her breath, ears straining.
Nothing—
She motioned Walter forward. Rows of rusting machinery disappeared into shadow.
Gutting tables. Conveyor belts. Hanging plastic strip curtains swayed gently in the draft, turning every beam of light into shifting silhouettes.
Her boots splashed through standing water.
Walter peeled right while Sarah took the left.
Her weapon light skimmed across machinery black with age.
Too many places for one man to pin two people down.
A shadow shifted among the machinery. Human height. Gone again.
“Sheriff’s Department!” she called. “Show me your hands!”
A rifle cracked from her two o’clock, muzzle flaring blue-white in the gloom. The round exploded splinters from a post inches from her head.
Walter caught the back of her vest and yanked hard.
She hit the floor behind a rusted conveyor, her shoulder hitting wood with a bright burst of pain.
She rolled and returned two controlled rounds toward the muzzle flash.
Plastic burst apart, and metal rang. She held her fire and steadied her breathing.
Boots pounded.
“He’s moving!” Walter snapped.
Sarah was already on her feet. “Left!”
Walter shifted with her, covering the lanes between the machinery while she drove forward, low and fast, keeping the rusted conveyor between herself and the shooter’s last position.
The double swing doors at the far end slammed shut. He wasn’t standing his ground. He was falling back. Or drawing them forward.
Sarah reached the doors and paused. She turned to Walter and met his eyes. Ready?
He gave the smallest nod.
She shouldered through. The doors opened into the packing room. A broad space divided by pallets and collapsed fish crates.
Straight ahead, on the far side, the door to cold storage swung an inch. She exhaled a slow breath, ignoring the ache that came with it, and followed the gunman through the door. On the other side, the short passage opened into the cannery’s cold storage.
Movement.
“Contact!”
The man broke from behind an industrial refrigerator, bolting toward the doorway that led to the covered loading bay.
Sarah fired.
The round punched into the wall as he ducked and vanished through the door. Damn it.
Behind her, Walter barked, “Sarah!”
She turned. Too late.
A second man exploded out from behind the storage racks and drove Walter sideways before he could bring his rifle around.
They slammed into the storage racks, dislodging a rain of cardboard and rust flakes. The man’s rifle came around between them. Walter trapped the barrel against his chest and drove an elbow into his throat. Once. Twice. The second strike broke his balance.
Sarah swung her rifle toward them and stopped. No clean shot. Walter hooked a leg behind the gunman’s knee and took him down hard.
Sarah covered while Walter stripped away the rifle, checked him for a sidearm, and secured zip ties around his wrists.
“One secure.” Walter wiped blood from his mouth, catching his breath.
“Good.” Sarah looked toward the doorway where the first gunman had vanished. “He bought him time.”
Walter gave a nod. “Which means we’re going the right way.”
Sarah eased into the covered loading bay, Walter’s shoulder bumping hers.
The loading gates that opened onto the exterior dock extended across the far wall, all closed.
Loose cardboard littered the floor beneath rows of empty storage racks.
She checked upward. Above the gates, the supervisor’s office overlooked the room from a narrow mezzanine.
Water dripped somewhere in the rafters, loud in the open space.
Walter whispered as they moved in a slow circle. “Where’d he go?”
Sarah kept to where the shadows were deepest along the wall. No sway in the hanging plastic. He hadn’t crossed the open floor.
Between two towering stacks of old fish crates, a narrow service passage also led to the exterior dock. The door was ajar. Fine. She knew where it came out.
“I hate splitting, but together we lose the dock and he disappears.”
Walter jerked his head. “Agreed.”
She motioned with her rifle. “Take the service passage. I’ll go through the personnel door. We cut him off outside.”
“On it.” Walter moved off, rifle raised.
The personnel door was set into the wall close to the nearest loading-bay gate. Sarah eased it open, and for once the hinges cooperated and made no sound. She stepped onto the exterior walkway and hurried around the side of the building.
The service passage Walter had taken ended twenty yards ahead. The door flew open, and the man dodged out into the freezing air.
She snugged her weapon against her shoulder. “Sheriff. Stop there.”
His boots skidded on the greasy wood. He turned, eyes wide with genuine surprise, and swung his rifle toward her.
Sarah already had him covered.
“Don’t.” Walter appeared behind him.
The man’s eyes flicked between them. Icy water all around. Walter blocking the passage. Sarah’s muzzle centered on his chest. The calculation died. His shoulders lowered a fraction, and his rifle touched the floor.
“It’s over,” she said. “Down. Now.”
She cuffed his wrists behind him, then secured him to a supporting upright with a zip tie. Walter gave him a quick pat-down for radios and additional weapons.
Two in custody.
“Here.” Walter held up two radio handsets, pocketed them, then followed her back along the walkway. They re-entered the cannery through the personnel door.
A narrow wooden staircase climbed the side wall to the supervisor’s office on the mezzanine above. Sarah climbed the stairs along their outer edges, where the wood looked strongest and least likely to complain.
The office sat at the end of a short landing, its door closed. Wraparound windows gave away nothing in the gloom. She crouch-ran to the nearest and risked a look through the dirty glass.
Shit.
Cord. He was strapped to the gurney, face pale. One man stood guard, sweat gleaming on his forehead. They hadn’t made the transfer yet.
Sarah turned to Walter and held up one finger. One suspect.
Walter pointed toward the narrow catwalk that wrapped around the outside of the office, barely wide enough for a man to sidestep along. She nodded in reply. They’d done this enough.
He bent low and disappeared into the darkness without a sound. Sarah counted as she kept an eye on the guard pacing inside the office.
Three seconds.
Five.
Seven.
Long enough for doubt to suggest itself, but she was no longer taking suggestions. A faint scrape from Walter came from beyond the exterior wall. The guard’s head turned away from her, toward the sound.
Sarah drove through the door, rifle shouldered. “Sheriff’s Department! Drop it!”
The guard spun faster than she’d expected. His rifle snapped toward her. Too close for her own rifle. Sarah drove his muzzle aside with her forearm and crashed into him.
His rifle discharged, and the blast tore into the ceiling. Filthy plaster exploded in a choking cloud. The man jerked under her, and the muzzle swung toward her chest. Sarah jammed the barrel into the wall. Another deafening crack that hammered her ears as the round discharged into wood paneling.
“Bitch.”
Pain exploded through her chest as he drove her backward. He was so much stronger. For one terrifying second she lost her grip?—
Walter collided with them both.
The impact threw the man sideways, and his rifle went flying to the far side of the room. Sarah staggered to her feet as Walter drove him face-first onto the floorboards, his knee between the shoulder blades.
“Sheriff, you hit?” Walter looked over his shoulder, panting.
She made the man’s rifle safe. “I’m fine. You?”
Walter’s mouth was a thin slash. “I’m good.”
Sarah leaned against the wall for a second, catching her breath. Walter was upright. Cord was alive. This was a win.
For five full seconds she let herself feel it. The ache in her ribs. Sweat cooling beneath her vest. Dust hanging in the yellow light where the gunfire had torn through the ceiling.
Walter secured the man’s wrists, then hauled him upright against the wall. His eyes never left the prisoner as Sarah keyed her radio. “Wyatt, the asset is secure. Three in custody.”
“Copy. Coast Guard moving.”
Her thumb left the radio. Movement caught the corner of her vision. Something flashed in the glass. Outside. A beam of white light blinked in a grimy window before vanishing again.
There and gone.
Her eyes snapped to Walter. He’d seen it too. Another flashlight. Another gunman. Downstairs. Heading for the far end of the building.
Walter’s face hardened. “You’re not clearing alone.”
“Cord is priority one.” She pointed at the gurney.
She didn’t like splitting again, but she liked leaving Cord exposed even less.
Walter’s expression said everything. “Sarah?—”
“That’s an order, Walter. Cord stays covered until Wyatt gets people inside.”
Walter exhaled noisily. “And you?”
“I keep our last gunman moving away from this room.” Sarah left the office, crossed the mezzanine landing, and killed her flashlight before reaching the stairs.
She descended quickly, testing each tread with the toe of her boot before trusting it. At the bottom she waited, slowing her breathing so the thud of her heart wouldn’t interfere with her hearing.
A breeze. Water restless beneath the floor. Snowlight washing the space milky and ethereal.
Nothing that belonged to a frightened man trying to escape. She moved forward slowly, searching for solid sections of floor and placing each step carefully. A sound. Ahead and to her right. Wood complained under weight.
The soft metallic click of a door latch being tested.
She followed the sound beyond the storage racks, toward the service passage. At its far end, the exterior door opened onto the section of walkway beyond the loading dock, supported by the cannery’s oldest pilings.
Sarah stepped through the doorway with her weapon raised. Outside, she cleared right. Twenty feet away, the prisoner was still secured to the upright, head bowed. Lengths of wire and old electrical cable hung in snarls along the walkway’s broken edge.
Then she cleared left.
The final gunman stood at the far end, silhouetted against the silver water, his back to her. The wood changed underfoot, the boards flexing far more than she liked, but there was no time to choose a different approach.
He turned.
“Sheriff’s Department.” Her voice was steady. “Drop your weapon and get on your knees.”
His face was young, eyes wild.
“It’s done,” she said. “Your team’s in custody. The Coast Guard has the water. There’s nowhere left to go.”
His hand shifted on his weapon, but his eyes remained on her.
“Don’t—”
He fired.
Sarah fired with him.
Her round caught him and spun him sideways into the rail. At the same instant, his round struck her chest with the force of a sledgehammer. Sarah staggered backward. Her boot punched through pulpy timber.
Then the floor was gone.
The boards vanished beneath her. For one suspended beat, there was only freezing air. Then she hit the water.
Black closed over her head.
The cold hit like a physical blow. Her chest seized. Reflex ripped a gasp from her, gritty salt water flooding her mouth.
It was impossible to tell which way was up.
She lashed out, searching for something to hold on to, but the water churned with the wreckage of her fall. Something bit her ankle. She reached down with clumsy fingers. It was wire, looped and tightening with every kick as she fought toward the surface.
The wire sliced her palm.
The cut barely registered. Her need for air had become everything.
A pale glimmer wavered somewhere above her. Her legs moved in slow, heavy strokes that gave her less with every kick as the cold stole strength faster than she could replace it. Her body armor dragged. Her arms were leaden.
The light faded.
Her lungs convulsed, her mouth opening on reflex?—